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KP Breakdown of the Liberty Universtiy Flames ("LU", "JFU", "Homophobe U",

CharlotteDeac1 said:
Okay I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here cause i went to the game and was absolutely disgusted with what I saw. I left with over 10 minutes to play.

How in the fuck do we get out rebounded by 11 by a team that's tallest player is 6'8? The reason we lost both these first basketball games is because no one on our team outside Chaundee is playing like they give a shit. I haven't played real competitive basketball in 6 years and I swear on my life I could've gone out there and rebounded better than every single one of our guards tonight. I can live with a bad shooting night and that causing us to lose - but I cannot sit there and watch a bunch of division 1 athletes give zero effort for 35 minutes of a basketball game. I'm sitting at home typing this trying to figure out if this is a player problem or coaching problem and come to the conclusion that it has to be both. Manning should not have to teach ACC basketball players to crash the boards and box out but looks like he's going to have to start.
What really gets to me is: do we have a single player on our team with a competitive bone in their body? When I played i wasn't the best athlete, I wasn't going to go out there and break anyones ankles or dunk on anyone, but Jesus Christ i was competitive and put in the effort to be the best defender on my team and second in rebounds to our center. All it takes is aggressiveness and EFFORT. If we gave up an offensive rebound or two I would get pissed off and crash the boards harder than anyone in the gym and Id get the damn rebound (if not, I'd foul the shit out of someone in the process because I was pissed off). When is either one of Keyshawn or Bryant going to figure it the fuck out and go after the basketball rather than just watching the shot waiting for a kick out? its just flat out embarrassing.
I have been a staunch "Brandon will be a very good Deac" guy but he's looked awful. Wilbekin might be bottom 3 players in the ACC.

Keyshawn and Bryant need to get their shit together, be leaders and be fucking competitive. Pick up the slack of losing 20 rebounds a game and go after every shot, every loose ball.

Also, all you people who hated Dinos look really stupid right now. He was our second best rebounder and would be the best rebounder on this team by a large margin. we miss him a shit ton. Dude would probably average 10+ rebounds a game on this team.
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Well said. The bold is on the coach. It is his job to recruit players who give a shit and motivate them to go out and play like they give a shit. That's what go Gottfried canned at State.
 
sportsnut said:
My starting five would be Moore (or Okeke), Thompson, Chaundee, Crawford and Keyshawn. First big man off bench is Okeke (Sarr is just not ready yet) and for the guards it would be Childress. Play these guys (plus Sarr and Melo) until they drop. Wilbekin should only come in due to foul trouble or injury, leave Donovan, Washington and SJM on the bench until the games are decided or in an emergency situation
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Let's just not sub any position but the 5.
 
TBDeac said:
Let's just not sub any position but the 5.
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Lol, that would be great as long as their legs don't fall off but someone else HAS to play if only for 2-3 minutes at a time to rest people (and yes, I know you were being facetious) :cool:
 
Buttermaker said:
Well said. The bold is on the coach. It is his job to recruit players who give a shit and motivate them to go out and play like they give a shit. That's what go Gottfried canned at State.
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My thing is, BC Key and Chill all played like the gave a shit last year. What happened between then and now? Chaundee came in and is giving 100% effort and playing great defense. I have no idea what happened to the "want to" in the three players mentioned.
 
Believe it or not, I just watched the replay again. Only the first 10 game minutes, but still.

We actually came out looking pretty motivated. The team looked focused, and aside from missing some shots and making a few turnovers, the body language wasn't so bad.

But once it became obvious that Liberty wasn't going away, and that they actually made things tough for us on offense, the team looked completely different. Lots of pressing... Forcing up bad shots and trying to win the game all at once instead of valuing each possession.
 
Can't argue that the first two games were abject disasters, and the prospects for the season are beyond grim as even if WF suddenly played as well as most reasonably expected from this point forward, losses to Big South and Sun Belt teams are hard to overcome, and even in a best case scenario for WF basketball this year, this team had little margin for error, and WF couldn't have messed up the first two any more than it did.

With all that said, the GA Southern loss was flukey. WF led the entire game, but failed to put them away. Then, GA Southern hit a bomb to tie the game; WF had a bad possession (BC chucked a three, and then WF bricked the shot off the rebound), and on GA Southern's last possession, WF then forced a miss, but fouled on the rebound in the final seconds. That loss shook the player's fragile confidence, and WF played awful from the start against Liberty, and as the team continued to struggle, the players started to press, which was made worse when WF inexplicably used small lineups that played right into Liberty's hands. The blame for the loss falls on everyone. Players clearly thought that they could half-ass it and win these first two, and the coaches provided no help in the late game melt-down against GA Southern or in getting the team to play angry or to escape its funk against Liberty.

WF is better than it has played, but not sure if playing like the #100 team in the country instead of the #250 team in the country really means that much in the end.

Wish Danny would trend toward playing bigger lineups, and never want to see Chill and Wilbekin share time on the floor until and unless the opponent can only foul. It sucks to suck.
 
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sportsnut said:
My starting five would be Moore (or Okeke), Thompson, Chaundee, Crawford and Keyshawn. First big man off bench is Okeke (Sarr is just not ready yet) and for the guards it would be Childress. Play these guys (plus Sarr and Melo) until they drop. Wilbekin should only come in due to foul trouble or injury, leave Donovan, Washington and SJM on the bench until the games are decided or in an emergency situation
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I like this. But I think Okeke replaces Thompson. SJM replaces Doral in minutes. I still haven't seen where SJM is absolutely awful. He's still a big body that put his arms in the air and box someone out as opposed to a 6'3 guy.
 
Chill and Wilbekin have been so bad this season. If we had any depth beyond them, then I would be in favor of just benching the two of them.
 
The worst part for me is that I have seen absolutely nothing that gives hope. Doral will continue to be a short spurt player who collects fouls and/or can't be on the court in the end of close games because he is horrible at the foul line. Key and Crawford are our best players but short on effort especially over the course of the entire game. As well as Key shot the ball in the 1st game, his defense was horrible...he is like a matador and just waves as his man blows past him. Crawford could be our best defensive player but he loses interest for large segments of the game. Brown is potentially our best player but he is a freshman. We must play bigger and coach our players how to rebound...you would think that would have happened already?!

Our subs at the guard position simply do not play sound fundamental basketball at either end of the court. Both GS and Liberty had guards who play better fundamentals and shoot way better than any of our guards. Sad. This season will be historically bad.
 
We need someone to be the leader on this team. I don't care who but someone has to step up and take charge, be the guy that others follow.
I'm up for the Doral, Okeke, Chaundee, Woods, Bryant lineup. Defensively, this could be our best team. Would like to see less pick and roll and more feeding the post if our offense stalls.
Woods needs to work on the mental aspects of his game. He's our most talented offensive player but he was sulking during the game and after.
Doral needs to be huge for us to avoid a disaster year and I think he can. Wish his stamina was better tho.
 
Doggus said:
We need someone to be the leader on this team. I don't care who but someone has to step up and take charge, be the guy that others follow.
I'm up for the Doral, Okeke, Chaundee, Woods, Bryant lineup. Defensively, this could be our best team. Would like to see less pick and roll and more feeding the post if our offense stalls.
Woods needs to work on the mental aspects of his game. He's our most talented offensive player but he was sulking during the game and after.
Doral needs to be huge for us to avoid a disaster year and I think he can. Wish his stamina was better tho.
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His free throw shooting must improve. Last pm Liberty began fouling him intentionally and after 3 straight misses, Manning was forced to take him out (HackaShack or FoulDoral tactic).
 
sportsnut said:
. Play these guys (plus Sarr and Melo) until they drop
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Which for moore would apparently be the 17 minute mark. I think the guy far away has the most skills of of our post players but I figured at some point his conditioning would start to improve. He apparently spent a lot of time in the weight room bulking up so it isn't a work ethic issue. I just don't know what the deal is here
 
Couple of thoughts.

The lack of defensive effort and acumen is nothing new. It's been a staple of Wake Forest basketball for years. Manning appears to be following tradition. The fact that he has maintained the same defensive philosophy despite a lack of success is at best...puzzling.

The results of the first two games would suggest that a four guard, one big line up might not be the best approach to victory. If the results of the previous season or three are included, this approach could be considered detrimental to winning.

I liked Okeke's four minutes on the floor. I would make certain to give him four more minutes in the first half of the next game to see if he could duplicate the production and effort. If so, I'd give him four more minutes in the second half. It might send a message that effort and production will be rewarded to a team having difficulty providing either commodity.
 
mebanedeac said:
His free throw shooting must improve. Last pm Liberty began fouling him intentionally and after 3 straight misses, Manning was forced to take him out (HackaShack or FoulDoral tactic).
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I remember as a freshman he had a really nice looking stroke I wonder if some of this is part and parcel of the conditioning problem
 
Pilchard said:
Can't argue that the first two games were abject disasters, and the prospects for the season are beyond grim as even if WF suddenly played as well as most reasonably expected from this point forward, losses to Big South and Sun Belt teams are hard to overcome, and even in a best case scenario for WF basketball this year, this team had little margin for error, and WF couldn't have messed up the first two any more than it did.

With all that said, the GA Southern loss was flukey. WF led the entire game, but failed to put them away. Then, GA Southern hit a bomb to tie the game; WF had a bad possession (BC chucked a three, and then WF bricked the shot off the rebound), and on GA Southern's last possession, WF then forced a miss, but fouled on the rebound in the final seconds. That loss shook the player's fragile confidence, and WF played awful from the start against Liberty, and as the team continued to struggle, the players started to press, which was made worse when WF inexplicably used small lineups that played right into Liberty's hands. The blame for the loss falls on everyone. Players clearly thought that they could half-ass it and win these first two, and the coaches provided no help in the late game melt-down against GA Southern or in getting the team to play angry or to escape its funk against Liberty.

WF is better than it has played, but not sure if playing like the #100 team in the country instead of the #250 team in the country really means that much in the end.

Wish Danny would trend toward playing bigger lineups, and never want to see Chill and Wilbekin share time on the floor until and unless the opponent can only foul. It sucks to suck.
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I did notice that against GA Southern we called timeouts during their runs basically as you'd expect in a significant game, and went with mostly normal lineups. Against Liberty a couple times when they hit big shots and our guys were dragging Manning made them play through it, then he put in Okeke after getting frustrated with our bigs. Kinda seemed like a "you guys better toughen the fuck up" move at the expense of normal strategy.

Love them or hate them, we're going to need more than 10% shooting from the field from Wilbekin and Childress combined to win games. They have to play minutes. At least Moore put up a solid stat line against Liberty. Another debacle game from him along with Sarr playing like the invisible man would have generated [Redacted]-level hopelessness. Those teams are bad but not terrible. Still sucks.
 
DCDeac said:
I did notice that against GA Southern we called timeouts during their runs basically as you'd expect in a significant game, and went with mostly normal lineups. Against Liberty a couple times when they hit big shots and our guys were dragging Manning made them play through it, then he put in Okeke after getting frustrated with our bigs. Kinda seemed like a "you guys better toughen the fuck up" move at the expense of normal strategy.

Love them or hate them, we're going to need more than 10% shooting from the field from Wilbekin and Childress combined to win games. They have to play minutes. At least Moore put up a solid stat line against Liberty. Another debacle game from him along with Sarr playing like the invisible man would have generated [name redacted]-level hopelessness. Those teams are bad but not terrible. Still sucks.
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Manning might want to play some of the white guys on the bench...after all don't we love diversity?
 
I watched the replay of this game after watching it last night. It's pretty obvious what needs to happen right now. First, we need to play the our starters/team with size longer. Woods, Crawford, Moore, Thompson, Brown with Sarr, maybe SJM, Okeke, maybe Melo, all getting run. Moore scored our first 4 points of the game. His size is the difference, particularly against mid-majors. Then we subbed in and ran a lineup of Chill, Wilbekin, Donovan Mitchell, Sarr, and Crawford. That lineup was awful and we fell behind. Sarr is going to be fine. It's his first game, but damn he's fluid for his size.

Chill is size limited. Wilbekin is size and speed limited. Woods is speed limited. We cannot have three of those in a game, let alone two. We absolutely get smashed, even by Liberty talent. Wilbekin, our Sr, got lost multiple times on the perimeter leading to 3's.

Bottom line is we need to use our size. Donovan Mitchell hasn't shown he's awful yet. He's fluid. He can guard the perimeter. We cannot commit to this 4 guard thing. Manning has to realize this or we are doomed. 9 minutes into the game, we were down 4. Doral had 6 of our 10 plus a great bit of D on his man. And he probably only played 4-5 of the 9 minutes.

I did notice that we sometimes just swapped guys on the perimeter even when there isn't a pick. I have no idea if that is intentional or what. But it resulted in guys being wide open on the perimeter. And it wasn't even big-small swap. I noticed one situation where Chill's man started up top and went to the right perimeter. Crawford's man went from right perimeter to the top. Chill let his man walk free. Crawford was down on the block. Everyone else was matched up. End result was that guy just posted up at the 3-point line and hit a wide open 3.

We also just missed a TON of wide open 3's. And I mean WIDE open. Rough when you're relying on experience guards to hit those shots and they don't. Chill is offensively trying to do way too much, forcing drives and pushing bad passes.

Okeke has the size and the hustle. He needs to play more.

Moore and Sarr are going to be players. But we really need to rely on our size more, particularly against teams like this. We need to focus on the process and just get better and get our lineup down. Manning is seeing what a lot of these guys can do. If we figure it out, we'll be a better team. The parts are there.
 
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